A gun-wielding, mustached Marine veteran demonstrated what a hero looks like when he fearlessly stepped in to save the life of a Texas officer being clobbered by a suspect on the side of the road in January.

“I’m alive today because of him,” recalled 23-year-old Bastrop Deputy Dylan Dorris, “what he did to step in and help me out until assistance got there… there’s no words to explain it.”

Two-tour Iraq veteran Scott Perkins yelled “Freeze!” at the suspect while pointing his no-longer-concealed weapon at him. At that point, 32-year-old Kenton Desean Fryer of Arkansas released the officer and fled the scene.

Fryer was later detained and charged with “aggravated assault of a public servant, taking an officer’s weapon, evading arrest or detention with a vehicle and driving while under the influence with a child under 15,” reported Statesman. His bail is set at $50,000.

Citizens assisting officers is near unheard of in a day when law enforcement is stigmatized as public enemy number one. Luckily for Dorris, one fellow citizen doesn’t see it that way.

“At that point, you don’t even think about your own life or anything else,” Perkins said while he reflected on the values he learned in the Marine Corps. “All your trying to do is stop the situation from anybody else getting injured.”

Appreciation was felt throughout the department. Sergeant James Davenport recognized the rarity of this kind of citizen assistance and gave his own thanks to Perkins: “In this day and time, a lot of times people would just drive by and keep going… To see someone that will stop and help is special.”

Perkins’s courage should remind us all that standing up for what is right may be hard, but in the end, it’s the right thing to do — and who knows, you might even save someone’s life!